The city of Darkness Falls (What were the town founders thinking?)
suffers from a terrible curse. Many generations ago an old
spinster named Matilda bestowed gold coins upon children in
exchange for their last baby tooth, but fate has dealt Matilda
a bad hand. She is first burned in a fire and thus forced
to wear a porcelain mask, both to protect her from painful
rays of light and to conceal her grisly countenance. Then
one day when two children don’t return from her house she
is unjustly lynched by the panicky townsfolk. Matilda was
understandably upset and vows to return from beyond the grave
to claim the children of Darkness Falls on the night of losing
their last baby tooth.

Fast forward to present time. Caitlin (Caulfield)
asks her childhood sweetie of 12 years ago, Kyle (Kley),
for help with her baby brother Michael (Cormie) who,
like Kyle, is very afraid of the dark. The usual cast of caricatures
round out the mix—the simple-minded cop, the double-crossing
lawyer, and a legion of nameless townsfolk with a date with
death. As chance would have it, the night these two targets
are in town is the very same night the power goes out and
Matilda goes on an indiscriminate killing spree with only
our heroes to oppose her.

Darkness Falls makes every mistake possible in the
genre. The dialogue is clichéd. Characters spout lines like
“There is no reason to be afraid of the dark,” predictably
right before Matilda strikes. Second-rate editing constantly
undoes this movie, which alternately shows too much and then,
in one scene where the screen is entirely black, too little.
The gross-out factor is also sorely lacking. When Matilda
swoops down and attacks, her victims simply disappear. A shower
of visceral gore would have been far more satisfying and would
have helped build suspense by reminding the audience of the
lurking mortal danger.

At an under 90-minute running time the movie is mercifully
short, but 90 minutes of what? Darkness Falls blatantly
steals from The Ring, Pitch Black, and the Alien
series among others, and hopes for a frightfest. Unfortunately
it lacks the finer qualities of any of these films—no taut
directing, no charismatic Vin Diesel, no H.R. Giger
aliens, and most importantly no originality. Worst of all,
the creature is not scary. The final scene, where Kyle quips
“I see you bitch!” before punching Matilda’s ugly mug, produced
a few unintentional laughs and felt more like Army Of Darkness
(and not in that good way) than anything else. So what does
one have to show for their 90 minutes? No thrills, no chills,
and certainly no fun.